Louisville enters their Friday night game against Florida State (FSU) on a two-game losing streak and at its lowest point of the season. Their last two games have resulted in losses when they were favored in both. They enter this week’s game favored by 3.5 points over the Seminoles with hopes of getting the season back on track.
Louisville gets huge defensive boost as key starter returns against Florida State
Card fans are feeling the lull as well. In a season where fans started with high aspirations of being a playoff contender and even competing for an ACC championship, they are now staring at a losing record overall as well as in conference play. Things are not completely over for the Cardinals, though. With it being so early in the season, Louisville can still run the table and finish 9-3. What some may have considered the floor at the beginning of the season is now suddenly the ceiling.
Even better for Louisville fans, the Seminoles are equally as bad right now according to many key national rankings.
On defense, FSU is ranked 103rd in Total Defense while being ranked 44th against the rush (119 YPG), 118th against the pass (241 YPG) and 55th in points allowed (21.6 PPG). Unfortunately for Louisville, the Cardinals have had to play defense this year as well, and their rankings are even worse. The Cards rank 125th in Total Defense while ranking 93rd against the pass (258 YPG) and 130th against the run (156 YPG). They also rank 113th in points allowed per game, giving up 29.2.
Based on those stats above, this should obviously be a high-scoring affair. With that being said, the offensive numbers are heavily skewed in Louisville's favor. The Cardinals' offense is ranked 17th in total offense, 25th in passing (272 YPG) and 38th in rushing (199 YPG), all while scoring the 22nd-most points in the country at 38.6 PPG. The Seminoles' offense is not quite as highly ranked, but they are still scoring 33.2 points per contest and ranking 52nd in total offense with a good rushing attack that ranks 41st at 194 yards per game.
In this game of mediocrity, it will come down to keys that are outside of those stats. When both teams are middle of the pack and neither defense has been particularly good, it may very well come down to just one stop that could win it for either side.
Here are three keys to a Louisville victory this Friday night.
1. Penalties
Under head coach Jeff Brohm, Louisville has consistently been a bad penalty team. They have been ranked outside of the top 50 in fewest penalties in every season since Brohm took over. Last season, they were ranked 113th in the country for penalties with 6.9 per game. This year, they are in a similar spot, ranking 115th while committing 7.8 penalties per game through five games. FSU is not much better, ranking 73rd with 6.6 penalties per game this season.
The problem isn’t even that the penalties happen; it is when they happen. Against Ole Miss, a roughing-the-kicker penalty extended a drive that changed a Rebels field goal into a touchdown, a difference of four points in a game Louisville would eventually lose by three. Against Wake Forest, Louisville had a chance for a game-tying field goal and was well within range before a 10-yard holding penalty took the ball from the 30-yard line back to the 40, making the game-tying kick a 57-yarder. That kick would later be blocked because of the lower launch angle needed to account for the distance.
Louisville averaged nine penalties in their first four games this season but had only three last week against NC State. Hopefully, that is a sign of things to come moving forward, as penalties can be the difference between winning and losing these one-possession games. That is a lesson they should have learned by now, with seven of their last eight losses coming by three points or less and 10 of their last 11 coming by seven points or less.
If Louisville can limit its penalties, the Cardinals will have a better chance to limit FSU’s offensive chances. If this is a high-scoring, close game late, Louisville could have the upper hand simply by avoiding the mistakes that have cost them in the past.
2. Tackles For Loss
FSU is coming off a 10-sack game last week against Virginia. In a game that was basically a pick’em, and where the Cavaliers went up 7-0, the Seminoles' defense shut them down the rest of the game to go on to win 38-7. Along with the 10 sacks, FSU accounted for two more tackles for loss, making 12 in just one game. They are currently ranked 19th in the country with 36 tackles for loss through five games.
On top of FSU being good at creating tackles for loss, Louisville is not very good at protecting against them. In just five games, the Cardinals have given up 32 tackles for loss this season, which is good enough to rank 124th out of the 138 FBS schools. It is no secret that the offensive line has not lived up to expectations and has struggled, and that has a lot to do with the current state of quarterback Lincoln Kienholz, who has been dealing with an injury. Within those 32 TFL are 10 sacks of the quarterback, and that has shown up on the injury report over the past few weeks.
If Louisville wants to keep Kienholz healthy, they will need to protect him against a pretty good FSU defensive rush. The Seminoles just showed how quickly their defensive front can take over a game, and Louisville cannot afford to let that happen Friday night.
3. Turnovers
Despite the other two points made so far being very important, there seems to be a much more obvious stat that leads to victories for Louisville in the Brohm Era. Though keeping your quarterback upright and healthy and not committing ill-timed penalties are very important, only one stat really matters: the turnover battle.
Up until this season, Jeff Brohm had been undefeated when winning the turnover battle as the Louisville head coach. He lost his first game when winning the turnover battle against Ole Miss in the season opener. Since then, the stat has rung true, and he is now 19-1 in games where Louisville has fewer turnovers than its opponent.
In what is arguably the most important stat for Louisville in games, the Cardinals have the decisive edge heading into Friday. FSU ranks 93rd in turnover margin at -0.4 per game, having forced just five turnovers this season while giving up seven of their own. Louisville, on the other hand, ranks 27th with a 0.8 turnover margin per game, forcing eight turnovers this season while only committing four of their own.
In their last loss against NC State, it was turnovers that directly led to their loss both early and late in the game, which they once again lost by just three points. If Louisville can take care of the football while forcing FSU to make mistakes and cough it up a time or two, the Cardinals should have a very good chance to win this one.
Louisville has not played its best football over the last two weeks, but this is an opportunity to change that. The Cardinals are facing an FSU team with plenty of its own issues, and if Louisville can clean up the mistakes that have hurt them all season, they should have enough offensive firepower to come away with a much-needed win.
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